Ford, moving to keep up with growing demand for its new F-150 pickup, is hiring more workers who will support increased production of the company's new truck.
Most of the new jobs are being added at Ford's truck plant in Kansas City. Ford is in the process of re-tooling the plant and will begin building the aluminum F-Series this spring. The new pickup went into production late last year at Ford's truck plant in Dearborn, Michigan.
"We sell every truck we can build, and we plan to build more," said Joe Hinrichs, Ford President, the Americas.
The new F-Series is off to a strong start since rolling into showrooms in December. On Tuesday, Ford announced the best January sales of the pickup since 2004, with an increase of 12.3 percent compared to January 2014.
In addition, the automaker says the average F-150 was on dealer lots just 12 days in January before being sold, an extremely fast sales pace.
Higher pay for 500
Ford hiring another 1,550 workers at the entry-level wage of $19.28/hour means the automaker will hit its limit for adding new UAW employees at a lower-tier wage.
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As a result 500-600 line workers who have been paid the entry-level wage since joining Ford will transition to the higher-tier pay rate of $28.50/hour.
Ford and the UAW established the two-tier wage scale in 2011 as part of series of steps designed to make the automaker's costs more competitive with U.S. plants being run by foreign automakers.
Last year, Ford hired more than 5,000 new hourly workers as the company expanded production at several U.S. plants.
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